Moderna seeks green light from US and EU for Covid-19 vaccine
Moderna will today apply for emergency authorisation to roll out its Covid-19 vaccine in the US and the EU after its latest trial showed a 94 per cent success rate.
The US biotech firm will submit data to regulators in both regions, paving the way for a potential rollout in December.
Moderna today published full results from a late-stage study of its mRNA vaccine, which showed it was 94.1 per cent effective and had no serious safety concerns.
It also reported that its treatment was consistent across age, race, ethnicity and genders and had a 100 per cent success rate in preventing severe cases of Covid-19.
“We believe that we have a vaccine that is very highly efficacious. We now have the data to prove it,” said Moderna chief medical officer Tal Zaks. “We expect to be playing a major part in turning around this pandemic.”
The results mean Moderna is likely to be the second manufacturer to be granted approval for a rollout in the US this year after the jab developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which is 95 per cent effective.
Shares in Moderna jumped more than 15 per cent to a record high following the announcement. The company’s stock has now grown more than 600 per cent since the start of the year.
It comes after the government secured an additional 2m doses of Moderna’s vaccine, taking its total to roughly 7m — enough for around 3.5m people.
The vaccine is currently being reviewed by the UK medicines regulator, with Moderna hoping to be given the green light within two weeks. If approved, it could be delivered as early as spring 2021.
Checks are also being carried out on the Pfizer vaccine, as well as on the candidate from Astrazeneca and Oxford University.
In total, the UK has secured early access to more than 357m vaccine doses.